Sparrows – “Mark Of The Beast: Indoctrination”

The first of a three part series, after a few spins of the Mark Of The Beast: Indoctrination portion of the set, you should have a fairly solid impression as to what is going to follow in the coming months. Offering blackened death/black metal from Texas, Sparrows fair better than most who tread down this path simply by producing an output that doesn’t sound like, not to put too mild a point on it, dog shit.

Compared to everyone from modern death metal icons The Black Dahlia Murder to black metal terrors like Watain and Deicide, Sparrow’s uncluttered, razor sharp sound does indeed take elements from both ends of the extreme metal spectrum. Brutally feral, yet still possessing enough crunchy, moshy parts to really sink its claws into you, Mark Of The Beast: Indoctrination may not be the most complex album but, at the end of the day, there is enough chaotic tempo changes amongst the likes of the impressive “The Trinity Denied” to keep the attention of even the most ardent extreme metal listener for the duration of the six tracks. Thankfully a beefier sound, as opposed to the more primitive sounds usually associated with the black metal genre, ensures that the brutality of their music isn’t lost to the kind of studio gremlins that probably put most heavy music fans off from really giving black metal anything more than a passing glance.

So, with one chapter of the three down, it’ll be interesting to see where Sparrows lead us on the subsequent chapters. My guess is we’ll get more of the same feral, ear-battering fury but, as always, I’m happy to be proved wrong and will be keeping an eye on my inbox over the coming months for more Texan black metal rage.

Available from sparrowsmetal.bandcamp.com for the metal as fuck price of $6.66.

Track Listing:

01. Drunk On The Blood Of Fools
02. Cellar Of The Damned
03. Brainscan
04. Irradiated Boars
05. The Trinity Denied
06. Indoctrination

Run Time: 20:56
Release Date: October 31, 2012

Check out album: ‘Mark Of The Beast: Indoctrination’